It's Official: Weekend Lie-Ins Can Save Your Life

Study finds sleeping in could help you avoid early death (knew it!).

Dear husband. I have something to say to you.

Nyah nyah-nah nyaaah nyaaah.

All those times you have told me that I should get up early on the weekend, that there is no such thing as ‘sleep debt’ -- that one can’t make up for sleep one doesn’t get during the week, that 11am is not a great time to arise for breakfast. Suck it!

Science is on my side (well, maybe not about the breakfast).

According to The Guardian, the study from Sweden has found that adults under the age of 65 who slept less than five hours per night had a huge 65% higher mortality rate than those getting six or seven hours’ sleep. However -- and this is the cracker -- a lie-in on the weekend was a genuine health boost to those who are a little sleep-starved.

The survey of 38,000 adults --conducted by the Stress Research Institute at Stockholm University and Karolinska Institute -- found that if you balance a lack of weekday sleep with a longer snooze on your days off, you were once again at no more risk of dying than those who sprang out of bed after 7 hours sleep every night.

In other words, you can pay back your sleep debt and weekend lie-ins are SAVING YOUR LIFE!

Turn off that alarm on the weekend -- science tells you to! Image: Getty

Terrifyingly people who slept for eight or more hours, seven days a week, were found to have a 25% higher mortality rate compared with those who kept to six or seven hours a day, while it was also found that the link between sleep patterns and mortality disappeared for those aged 65 or older. That, the study said, was perhaps because older folk got the sleep they needed.

The study – published here in all its glory – concludes (rather happily for me) that “Possibly, long weekend sleep may compensate for short weekday sleep.”